NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13766, 3 June 1908, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE VACCINE TREATMENT. At a, discussion which took place nT a recent meeting of Hie JEsculapian Society, held in London, further evidence was brought forward in support of the fact that the vaccine treatment ie the best wo have nowadays for the large class of fikin infections which include boils, carbuncles, and acne, forms of disease that used to be found very difficult Lo influence, and which, by their chronicity and the unpleasant nature of their results, have been responsible for much Buffering. These local disturbances are due to a special group of microbes, technically known as the staphylococci, which infest the skin of most people, and wait until some slight injury or lowering of general health permits them to gain a foothold and to set "up inflammation in the. deeper layers of the ekin. The . term " vaccino" has been somewhat loosely used in the past to denote any substance injected into the blood with the object of increasing the resistance of the patient to various, microbes. In connection with the skin infections just mentioned we may define a jraccinc us being a saline solution containing a known * quantity of dead microbes. Experiments have shown that in certain diseases injections of dead microbes of the same group as those actually causing the disease produce the remarkable but fortunate result of inducing the blood to manufacture anti-bacterial substances, with the consequence that recovery is thereby greatly facilitated. To bring this .'bout, enormous numbers of these dead microbes have to be injected, as an example will show. Thus, supposing it is decided to treat a ease of chronic carbuncle by the injection of vaccine, the first step & to find out by microscopic investigation the particular kind of organism (staphylococcus) which is responsible lor the. carbuncle. This having been done, specimens of the microbe in question are cultivated in various special ways until colonies containing billions of these staphylococci have been obtained in the little glass "culture tubes." The microbes are then killed, either by heat or by exposure to various vapours, such as that of chloroform, and are now ready for use. By an elaborate syei-em of , counting and calculation a known quantity of the microbes are obtained in a certain quantity of saline solution, which is the medium for the injection. As to the actual treatment, some bacteriologists recommend injections containing 60,000,000 dead bacteria, to be repeated every four or fivo days: others use stronger vaccines at shorter intermix, injecting, for example, some 500.000,000 bacteria every tori night or so. In suitable cases the results obtained repay all the trouble taken, but it has to be borne in mind that, whilst vaccines rapidly aid recovery in chronic cases, as a, rule* they do not. afford ue much help in instances t\f acute illnets.